I'll post a short picture and description of our robot if no one else on my team gets to it first, but viewers of this thread may wish to know that I'm making a little "scouting book" for Newton teams that has 6 robot pictures, team names, and the event that the robot did best in on a page, that I'll be putting up in PDF form soon. Assuming I get it done, I'm like 20 bots in
Anyone from my team feel free to add to or correct this; I know less about the technical aspects of the robot and more about what it can do on the field.
Team 1714 More Robotics
Bot Name: I don't think anyone is really sure. It was "Philbert 2" until we thought of a name, then it was "Dean Kamen" when he signed the side of it. Now that Woodie Flowers signed the other side, I don't know.
Drivetrain: 4 Wheel, wide. Back wheels driven by CIMs and bear most of the weight, the front motors are driven by geared-up window motors and break loose during turns for better steering. Powerful enough to push robots around easily.
Manipulator: Fast clear polyurethane belt driven by a CIM for speed. Diverter allows for storing of 3 balls in the front (we can thus hold the empty cell and fire at the same time, or just hold more moon rocks). Simple CIM-driven shooter mounted onto self-lubricating acrylic turret (180 degree range of motion). Feeds 6 balls out in under a second, 9 balls (capacity) in about 1.75 seconds. Wide ball collector doesn't jam often and reverses to unjam very quickly (we have never had our manipulator stuck for more than a second). Our shooter manually aims and dumps out from short distances very accurately.
Chassis: 100% polycarbonate, as always
From a strategy perspective, the main advantage of our robot is our quick, accurate dumps. Other bots have us beat on capacity, but we can slam up on someone, unload, and drive away before you have time to react. We also load very quickly, as the belts don't have to deliver up to a storage container (the belts ARE the storage), and can pick up Empty Cells off the ground without firing them.